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Kansas City is the center of the “animal health corridor” that runs from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, to Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. The area, which also includes St. Joseph, Missouri, and Emporia, Kansas, has half of the world’s companies that deal with animal health, your food and your pets.

Tuesday, 17 selected companies pitched their products to companies and investors at the convention, much like on the ABC reality show “Shark Tank.” It's said to be an opportunity to get the type of exposure to the right audience that's not available anywhere else in the world.

“Families will spent millions on their pets. They’re family members. We call them, ‘Pet parents,’” said Kimberly Young of the KC Animal Health Corridor.

Dr. Blake Hawley said his company did it last year.

“For us, it was huge. It was our springboard to introduce ourselves in the corridor,” Hawley said.

Jenny Filbey, the CEO of Mazen Animal Health of St. Joseph, Missouri, pitched a needle-free vaccine for swine.

“To prevent disease in a way that is friendlier to the animal and for the producer,” she said.

Filbey’s pitch was persuasive. Mazen topped 16 other competitors from an international field and won the event.

Most of the companies were not from the region. One was from Ireland and another was from Canada.